I'm currently playing around with my buddies old ibook g4 and am having trouble trying to install a game that requires OS 10.3.9 to play. Im currently running at 10.3.4. Well this is my problem, my buddy no longer has his Operating System Cd's and cannot remember what his Admin Password is (ibook's been in storage for the past year). And of course we can't update the software without the admin password. And since we dont have the boot cd's I dont know what to do next. Is there anything I can do to possibly reset the admin password? Or am I completely out of luck? Will i be forced to purchase a whole new operating system? I would appreciate any advice you could give. thanks again for taking the time to read my post.

And have heard in a few other posts Apple only charges like $20 or something like that for replacement disks. So they're not expensive.

Lifeisabeach

02-09-2008 08:16 AM

I did a little bit of Googling. One article says you need the install disc, but in the case of a missing disc, suggests either trying to get replacement ones free from Apple (the one that would have shipped with the computer) or buying it cheap off ebay. I couldn't find anything else that says how to reset the admin password without an install disc.

Someone did post a comment in one forum suggesting the following:

Quote:

You don’t need the disks.
-Boot to Single User Mode (boot holding down command-s)
-type /sbin/mount -wu /
-type /sbin/SystemStarter
-passwd root
(and then give a new password.)
You now should be able to boot to root (as in user: root, password: whatever you set)
Go to System Prefs->accounts and create an account for yourself.
or boot to your regular account and when do stuff that asks for an “administrator password”, give the root one.

I can't vouch for this method, so hopefully someone will post an opinion here. In any event, if you do it, log in to root only long enough to do what is needed, then leave it be. Root has full, unrestricted access to everything in the system and you can royally hose the computer if you aren't careful.